Purpose

Reason For Buying

I saw this on its launch of Create and Craft as a pick of the day. I adore Tatty Teddy and the fact the discs include Docrafts Digital Designer and thus allow for you to resize, layer, colourise items on the disc. Include blank page sizes, card templates and gift bags using images on the disc gave it a lot of scope for being creative with the images. At £39.99 I pounced!

Pros/Cons

Pros

Lots of background papers

Toppers with and without text

Characters

Bows

Boarders

Elements

Verses

Bring in your own photos

Colourise tool to allow you to alter background colour images

Flip tool to let you make mirror images of items on the disc

Templates for cards, blank pages, gift bags

Transparency tool for a faded velum look. Excellent as although it is a slider you get a number value too, useful if you want to fade out the rest of the project to the same level of transparency.

Drop shadows, you can vary the angle and transparency of the shadow too.

Resize any of the images and layer them up for your custom projects

Online tutorials on their website and You Tube

Advertised as free updates to the Docrafts Digital Designer program, for the life of the product. You need to turn on your internet access AND THEN open the program to get the page where it tells you about the updates😉

Cons

I’ve only just started using this, so I’ll update this if I’m wrong but at the time of writing.

Needs a crop tool. They have added square blank page templates and card sizes as a result of customer enquiries. (Thanks to the updates😉 ) But the papers I’ve opened so far are rectangular. To keep the image correct (not distorted) you need to drag a corner of a paper. It will then also stay a rectangle, so won’t fit the square projects cleanly. (It MAY be that the program doesn’t print outside the template boundaries but if you are leaving a little white border on your design it doesn’t fit). The crop tool would let you resize to your card size and trim off any area you don’t want to keep. Perhaps there is an option in the punches that I haven’t tried yet. Maybe I should have used a square punch on the paper and then dragged the corner from there????

Can’t link layers yet! If you are making a design you want to duplicate across a page, for little tags etc and have layered things up, it would be helpful if it could let you move things together.

You have to think ahead if you want to make several small projects on a flat page, you can’t have two documents open at the same time and drag an earlier design onto a blank flat sheet to allow you to print more than one on a page.

Thumbnail previews are too small to read text on. You have to drag them onto the workspace to see whats on them.

These are just niggles. I’m used to Photoshop and Serif Craft Artist. Docrafts Digital Designer seems to be in its early stages and they say they are adding more tools over time. Since they say you get free updates as they add functionality then that’s superb.

It’s still a fab program, especially if you are new and if you haven’t used whizzy programs, you probably wouldn’t miss the tools just mentioned.

Build Quality

Good. Classic Microsoft keyboard shortcuts don’t work (like control c for copy etc) but they have buttons for functions instead. With a few more tools this would be even better.

Value for Money

Excellent! I bought this for £39.99 on its launch on C&C and for that I’m really pleased. You have plenty of options and good content. I can think of lots of projects to make with this and if you or your friends love Tatty Teddy, it will save you a fortune on these style of cards.

Would I buy it Again?

At £39.99 yes. The full rrp for this is said to be around £60, personally I wouldn’t have paid that much, knowing the tools that are currently on the designer at this time. I say that as they seem to update the software as they go, so more tools and functionality may be added over time.

Serious Tatty Teddy fans would argue that even at £60 it is a bargain, for the amount of content included and the multiple options on projects you can make. If you are making lots from this, then its true. If an average Tatty Teddy card is £5 then after just 12 cards alone, it has paid for itself at £60. Once you add in the papers, which you can use to create anything with, toppers for gift tags plus all the other content, which will let you create some wonderful projects in card styles you just can’t get in the shops. Great value.

Summing up

If you are new to computer crafting, this is a good introduction, plenty of options for just printing whats there,(background papers and decoupage sheets). Not too many tools to confuse you. If you have used computer software to digi create in the past, you will quickly find your way round the simple tools and explore the possibilities.

The free Digital Designer software program updates for the life of the program is fantastic! As extra templates and tools get added you can get them too (as long as you have internet access).

Nice images for all ages and all occasions, if you love Tatty Teddy you’ll love this CD. Would also make an excellent gift for any Tatty Teddy fan.

Links

Here are links to the makers websites for more information about the program and its software.

Related

4 Responses

I have the Tatty Ted Especially For You aswell Billie and love it, I have been playing a lot and find it very versatile. The updates are extremely easy to get aswell as you don’t have to search, they just use a message when you open up to tell you there are new downloads, so simple to do to. It’s definitely an easier programme to use than some of the others.

I love Tatty Ted and have a few decorating my bedroom🙂 Doubt I’d pay £60 for the CD though, just think of how many stamps or paints you could buy with that lol
Looking forward to seeing some of your creations Billie! How is your hand now?

Really struggling to get hold of this disc, wish I had bought it from C & C on its launch! Even on Ebay it is fetching over £40 now and that’s the only place I have found any for sale! Well done for getting it.

Oh dear, sorry you are having such a struggle finding it. I’ve got a feeling that Docrafts did say it was exclusive to C&C until september. Try keeping an eye on the Docrafts site, I think I put the link to it in the article. You probably want the Docrafts digital area of the site. Perhaps there will be a relaunch of the product sometime this month, though probably at the higher price.

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